Recent attempts to contact Associate Attorney General Jane Young regarding whether search efforts remain active have been unsuccessful. Though calls have also been made to both New Hampshire and Maine Marine Patrols, all inquiries pertaining to the case are directed immediately to Young. Calls to her office as well as cell phone have not been returned.

Marriott, who disappeared after attending a class at the University of New Hampshire as a commuter student from Chester, is believed to have died during a sexual encounter. Whether the act was consensual or not has yet to be learned. On the evening Marriott went missing, she had reportedly sent a text from her phone just before 9 p.m. saying she would be visiting a friend in Dover.

Marriott failed to show up for her shift at the Target store in Greenland the next day, and police issued an alert across emergency radio communications to be on the lookout for the missing student. On Oct. 13, police held a news conference in Dover announcing officials were actively searching for Marriott's body as she was presumed dead.

The arrest of Seth Mazzaglia, 29, of Dover was also announced that day by Attorney General James Vara.

In early November, Foster's Daily Democrat, the Portsmouth Herald and the New Hampshire Union Leader asked for court records to be unsealed in the case. Dover Circuit Court Judge Stephen Morrison denied those requests, citing concerns about releasing information contained in court affidavits related to the investigation. He included in his ruling the need to hold a fair trial for murder suspect Mazzaglia, who faces second-degree murder charges.

Intense ground and water search efforts commenced in October and continued in the area of Peirce Island and Prescott Park as officials have stated they obtained credible evidence leading them to believe Marriott's body was there.

Search efforts have been dependent on weather conditions and were expanded beyond that area outside the mouth of the harbor into the shorelines of Maine and New Hampshire using aircraft, including Fish and Game seaplanes and a New Hampshire State Police helicopter.

Should her body not be recovered, it is unclear what charge or charges Mazzaglia would face.

In an article printed in Foster's Oct. 24, Charles Putnam, co-director of the Justiceworks program at UNH, said, in cases where the body of the murder victim is not available, the prosecution has the burden to prove that the death occurred, though admitting it doesn't mean a conviction is impossible.

He also said whether or not Mazzaglia would be able to plea down to a lesser charge than second-degree murder should the remains go undiscovered is impossible to say.

In Morrison's ruling, any party of the court motion to unseal records may ask for a reconsideration of his denial to release documents after 60 days.